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Election Night Gamesmanship

By Lorne Manly November 7, 2006 3:24 pmNovember 7, 2006 3:24 pm

As they’ve done in the last several midterm elections, the four main broadcast networks were planning live, prime-time coverage of just one hour tonight (at 10 p.m. on both the East and West Coasts.) But this afternoon, ABC may have set off an arms-race by announcing that it is expanding that hour to 90 minutes.

ABC’s “Vote 2006″ will run from 9:30 p.m. to 11 p.m., Eastern and Pacific time. Of course, the fact that ABC’s usual entry at 9:30, the Ted Danson comedy, “Help Me Help You,” is a ratings dud doesn’t make that decision so difficult.

Now, fans of “Dancing With the Stars” can seamlessly move from one quintessentially American competition to another.

And if CBS, NBC and Fox want to match ABC’s moves, they will suffer more than their network counterpart. Particularly Fox, where Hugh Laurie’s mad physician “House” is a bona fide hit. (CBS has a solid performer in “The Unit” and NBC programs “Law & Order: Criminal Intent.”

UPDATE, 4:46 p.m. The decision by ABC came down around lunchtime today, after lobbying by the news division, led by David Westin. “It’s one of the most exciting mid-term elections in quite a while,” said an ABC spokeswoman. Anne Sweeney, who has the unwieldy title of co-chair of the Disney Media Networks and president of the Disney-ABC Television Group, and Stephen McPherson, president of ABC Entertainment, agreed with Mr. Westin, and the word went out to ABC affiliates.

CBS and NBC both said they are sticking to their one-hour primetime specials. Fox is unlikely to change its plans. ABC, unlike NBC and Fox, does not have a cable news outlet.

At a time when nearly 3.000 American soldiers have died and untold Iraq’s have been murdered by us, At a time when we have the most corrupt and inept government EVER….. I would think that the mainstream media would do well to put aside a comedy show and use it’s jornalistic integrity to somehow find the courage and ethical responsiblity to report to the American viewers the outcome of our elections.

These networks are the ones that have been parroting Bush lines since 9/11. They are as guilty as the government in misinforming the American people about the real reasons to go to Iraq. They are as guilty of the death of civilians in Iraq, as the closter bombs used by Runsfeld Army.

I am planning to go to bed early today, and I will set my alarm clock for 4:30 am go to the internet and check some reputable newspaper in Europe to get the results before going to work.

The fact that networks are deferring to ratings and profit motives demonstrates once again how far public service considerations have fallen. What has happened to the gold standard set by CBS in the Murrow era when news and public service were regarded as distinct from entertainment, not subject to profit considerations, and the public interest prevailed?

It is no wonder that the general population is so uninformed and that the Bush Administration is so easily able to suspend habeas corpus and make people believe that Sadam Hussein was tied to Al Quaeda. Our Country is in crisis and waiting for an election that will have profound effects on the future course of the nature but the networks do not want to interfere with the bread and circusses.

ABC should be congratulated for giving the people earlier results, whatever their motives.

After the disasters of previous election coverage I would think the networks would take it slow and steady tonight.
Jumping the gun on results got most of them in trouble before, and with this election being so close in several states, in several time zones, remembering their past mistakes would be a sensable thing to do.
I just hope the people on the west coast and beyond don’t give up early.

Mr. Alba’s comments are not totally inacurrate but completely offensive. Perhaps he and his kind could call the press and the GOP into account without admonishing our millitary forces and taking a back handed shot at the intellegence of middle america.

Calling people stupid and disengaging is easy to do, but it does not help win elections. Winning elections is the only way to have a progressive voice in government.

It still amazes me how such itellegent people who make up the corporate main stream media can be so ignorant in swallowing the hook up to the bobber of the Bushist regime. Catering to the whims of the Bushist regime by trying to sway the election results by televising early election predictions. Then again maybe it doesn’t surprise me when they all are owned by defense contractors.

Mr. Alba is right, insulting or not. I personally will not go to bed tonight until I have some idea that America has voted out this corrupt, inept, phoney Republican Congress. I cannot go one more day not knowing if we have collectively done the right thing for our immediate future, as well as laying the groundwork for our long term future. I have adult children and young grandchildren and I don’t want to be remembered by them as part of a generation which is concerned only with itself and superficial posturing by moralist idiots who are incapable of doing their job. Since Reagan, we have been remarkably irresponsible in the way we have fallen for this entire line of thinking. Now, we have no middle class to speak of, we’ve sold out our environmental health, we’ve mortgaged our kids’ future and we’re not doing right by our parents or ourselves. Face it, Sam. We’ve been duped for long enough.

It has been a tough day! Yesterday I saw the HBO documentary “Hacking Democracy” and needless to say I am very afraid of what can be done to the voting machines to “win”. The past six years have bee a horrible nightmare and this election can begin the process to stem the deterioration to our system of goverment and restore the priorites that made America great. I can’t imagine a “no change'” results. There is so much to be done!

Well as a blissfully ignorant TV viewer, I would rather that ABC showed Boston Legal than the two tons of air filler that is called election coverage.
Yes this is an important election, probably the most important since the Civil War, but listening to a bunch of slightly (or would that be lightly) informed balloon people go on and on about it, is not going to get the cow back in the barn or even back on the farm for that matter. The very most it will do is keep the villains better informed on which voting machines need the most tampering, on the other hand the least it will do is more of the nothing the news has become since ‘Happy Talk’ hit the air in the 60s.

Okay, it might be fun to watch if once outside of the polls, they ask one of you informed Americans, maybe one in Kansas or Colorado Springs why they still voted for the conservatives who have lied to and let them down again. And then when they anwer with that wonderful conservative spew, the dude wit the mic can ask them if they know just how stupid that sounds as he plays it back for them to watch. I would LOVE to see that

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